Malacañang on Sunday credited the decline in the number of Filipinos who consider themselves poor to efforts of the Duterte administration to rein in last year’s record-high inflation rate.
Presidential Spokesman Salvador Panelo said self-rated poverty went down in consonance with the 5.1-percent drop of inflation in December.
“With the President’s tireless efforts in addressing and taming the inflationary effects of the prices of basic goods and commodities, we remain optimistic that many Filipino families would continue to feel more comfort this year,” Panelo said.
The Social Weather Stations showed the number of Filipinos who consider their families poor went down to 11.6 million in the fourth quarter of 2018.
According to the pollster, self-rated poverty in the country went down by two points to 50-percent from the previous 52-percent mark recorded in September.
The survey also found that the number of Filipinos who rated themselves as poor based on the food that they eat dropped to 34 percent or 7.9 million.
Panelo said the decline in the prices of goods and services is expected to continue, citing the forecast of the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas that the inflation rate could slow down to below 4 percent this year.
However, despite the positive figures, Panelo said the country still needs to sustain its high economic growth to bring down the poverty rate.
“Even as we acknowledge such positive development, we note, however, that the poverty among Filipinos is still high. In addressing it, we must sustain high economic growth that creates many jobs and reduce prices and inflation,” he said.
“Our economic managers are vigorously pursuing policies and programs geared towards reducing the poverty level and propelling the country’s economic development to a degree satisfactory to the administration’s goal of not only giving our countrymen comfortable lives but putting our country at par with our fast-developing industrialized Asian neighbors,” he added.